Chapter 4
“Lady Bel...!! Are you alri...?”
Ugh…… What on earth happened……?
“Lady Belsia!!!!”
Gasp.
The head maid?
“You’re awake! Phew……, I thought my heart was going to stop!”
“Yes, I’m fine. But this looks like the infirmary. Why am I here?”
“Ah, well……. Um……, uh……”
Sigh. Seeing her act so flustered again after all this time is raising my blood pressure.
How did she become head maid?
“Lady Belsia, you rushed straight toward the Demon King, right? I hurried after you, but when I got there, the Demon King’s room was a mess……. And you were collapsed in front of it!”
I wish she’d just get to the important part.
At this rate, discipline in the Demon King’s castle……
Hm? No, wait a minute.
“What? A mess? Where is the Demon King now?”
“He’s disappeared!!”
Bang!!!!
Belsia dashed out at a speed that would leave even her shadow behind!
“Lady Belsiaaa!!!”
At that incredible sight, the head maid hurried after her.
Creeeak——!
Belsia had arrived at the Demon King’s bedroom before she knew it, and screamed inwardly.
She couldn’t help it.
The Demon King had been kidnapped!!!
She’d heard from the head maid that the Demon King had been resurrected, and rushed out, leaving her backlog of work behind.
Of course, she knew the Demon King wasn’t dead, but after he’d been unconscious for so long, she’d been worried.
But the resurrected Demon King was beyond anything she’d imagined.
The Demon King’s disgraceful behavior she’d only dreamed of.
Her adorable Demon King had been doing something so cute!
In the end, the shock made her faint.
So she immediately came to a conclusion.
She’d been caught in illusion magic.
“Daaaamn it!!!!”
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The only thing cracking was the poor wall.
There was no way the Demon King would actually do such a thing, so someone had definitely used illusion magic to kidnap him!
What if he’d just gone out?
No way.
That wasn’t the only reason Belsia thought the Demon King had been kidnapped.
Why was the Demon King the Demon King?
Because the current Demon King was the only ‘demon’ in this world.
Demons possessed overwhelming power, and to use it to the fullest, they had to be in the Demon King’s castle.
Because the demon’s heart was in the castle.
The Demon King’s castle, sustained by a demon’s heart.
The Demon King, who would die if that heart were destroyed.
The castle itself could be called the Demon King’s body.
Who in the world would willingly separate from their own life?
Only Belsia, the Demon King’s secretary, and a handful of heroes who’d faced demons knew this fact.
Like the current captain of the human kingdom’s knights.
Grit.
Belsia gritted her teeth.
Illusion magic…… illusion magic……!
There weren’t many mages left in this world.
And few of them could use illusion magic.
The Tower Master of the Magic Tower, the beastkin shaman, and so on.
While Belsia was narrowing down the suspects—
A skeleton wearing jet-black armor appeared behind her.
It was one of the Four Heavenly Kings, ‘Black Knight Kardin.’
“What happened?”
Belsia bit her nails and took a deep breath.
“The Demon King…… has been kidnapped.”
Kardin nearly had his nonexistent eyeballs pop out.
My beloved Demon King has been kidnapped?!
“What?! Who kidnapped him?! Tell me! I’ll kill that bastard!”
“Calm down. The ones I suspect so far are the Tower Master and——”
“I’m going to kill them right now!!!!”
Riding a black horse that scattered black ash, Kardin became a distant speck in the blink of an eye.
“……”
Left all alone, Belsia sighed.
I can’t believe not one of these guys is useful!
Belsia decided she should first inform the other Heavenly Kings that the Demon King had been kidnapped.
“Huff, huff, wait for meee!”
The head maid came running at full speed from behind.
Belsia immediately gave her an order.
“You and the other maids, clean the Demon King’s room thoroughly. Something urgent has come up, so I have to go.”
But there aren’t any other maids besides me?
That was why she had become head maid.
***
Se-on and Yubel arrived at a nearby village.
They thanked the merchant who’d helped them for free, then went to the village’s Adventurers’ Guild to take a quest.
As it turned out, Yubel didn’t have any money either, so they needed to earn enough to ride a carriage.
Yubel said, ‘The Hero has no money?’ but fortunately Se-on managed to hold back his anger.
While Se-on went to get a quest,
Yubel was also thinking about something.
Is it normally this embarrassing to be a woman?
The Demon King dresses like a whore, so the wind keeps blowing right in.
How do I pee in a bathroom, anyway?
She had nothing but worries.
Still, she couldn’t keep wearing panties stained with blood, so Yubel secretly took them off in the carriage.
Getting embarrassed while doing that was utterly lewd.
Anyway, the Demon King’s looks were nice, but being a woman was nothing but inconvenient.
Things like menstruation, too.
And what good is having a nice appearance?
Without a mirror, she’d never get to see it.
Glance.
The Hero was looking at quest slips in front of the bulletin board.
Seeing him take a quest alone, am I just a temporary member?
To become a permanent member of the Hero’s party, I’d need to be strong, right?
But aren’t I the Demon King? Why am I so weak?
Shouldn’t I be able to shoot death beams from my eyes or something?
Yubel looked at a burly man in the guild with a frown.
He shot to his feet!
The burly man stood and came toward Yubel!
The people with him, including a woman who seemed to be his girlfriend, tried to stop him, but he approached as if bewitched and spoke to Yubel.
“Khehehe…… Are you trying to seduce me? I might go out with a girl like you.”
Yubel’s eyebrows shot up!
What’s this meathead talking about?
Oh, but why do I feel a surge of power?
“Honey! What’s wrong with you? You’re joking, right? Huh? Snap out of it!”
The woman was tugging on the man’s wrist, weeping.
Se-on, who had noticed the commotion, came over and stepped between the man and Yubel.
“What business do you have with my party member?”
Se-on moved his hand to his sword to threaten the man.
The people around them began watching with interest.
Huh.
Is this happening? Right here, right now?
Yubel wasn’t particularly scared; she was simply intrigued by the situation.
She could react that way only because she didn’t know you could die in a sword fight at the guild.
“Hey, buddy. Why don’t you move? Didn’t you see that girl seducing me with her eyes first?”
At those words, Se-on looked at Yubel.
His gaze plainly said, ‘What the hell are you talking about?’
Se-on showed even more hostility toward the man.
The man pushed away the woman clutching his arm and assumed a karate stance.
“Khehehe, I’m ‘The Unbreakable Hard Rock.’ You’d better run before you regret it, buddy.”
“Shut up.”
Thump-thump. Gulp. Gasp.
Everyone in the guild held their breath, focusing on the standoff.
“……”
“……”
And so, at this hair-trigger moment—
“Aaaaaah!!!!”
‘The Unbreakable Whatever’ screamed and fell over!
What had the Hero done?
Everyone looked at the Hero, but he was just as bewildered.
As it turned out, the man’s girlfriend was standing behind him.
The woman had kicked him right in the nuts!
So much for the Unbreakable’s unbreakables.
Guess he’d been slacking off on his training.
“Aagh!!!” “How awful……” “Eek!?”
That badass move turned every man in the guild pale.
And so, the Unbreakable was dragged away somewhere and disappeared.
“Hmm.”
What a shame. I could’ve watched a fight.
But why did he think I was seducing him?
The Demon King is pretty, but I’m a man. Heh heh.
While Yubel was having such absurd thoughts, Se-on took his hand off his sword and spoke.
“Are you okay? You’re not hurt?”
“Yeah. Totally fine. But you were kinda cool just now?”
The Hero’s face turned as red as a ripe tomato.
What a guy, blushing like that.
“Ahem. C-could you take a look at this?”
A little while later, Se-on returned to normal and showed Yubel the quest slip.
But I can’t read it?
“I found a quest. It’s for goblins. What do you think? We should be able to hunt them easily.”
Oh, the classic fantasy goblin hunt.
Yubel hadn’t been in this world long, so she was curious what monsters looked like.
But is this bastard aiming for an event?
I think there was an event where the Hero rescues an elf from goblins, then has his way with her.
Was that it? It was so long ago I don’t remember.
First, I need to figure out what the Hero is after.
“When are we going? Tomorrow?”
“No. Sorry, but I think we need to go right now.”
We just got to the village, and we’re already leaving?
I haven’t even properly looked around the village yet!
I need to stop this horny Hero right now——
“We don’t have any money, so I think we’ll have to sleep outside again tonight……”
Aha.
Yubel swallowed the words she’d been about to say.
Fair enough. The Hero’s a beggar, so it’s kinda pathetic.
What kind of Hero is this broke?
Yubel was remarkably good at forgetting her own mistakes.
***
“Hey! What are you doing? Hurry up!”
“Monsters might appear, so let’s stay alert as we go.”
“I know where they are! Stop yapping and hurry up!”
When she heard they might have to go hungry tonight if they had no money, Yubel dashed into the forest to hunt goblins.
They ran for a full thirty minutes.
Se-on was getting more and more tired, struggling to keep up.
Yubel’s still full of energy.
Is that because she’s beastkin?
While Se-on was frantically following behind Yubel,
Yubel crouched and hid behind a tree larger than her body.
“We’re almost there——”
“Shh! Be quiet. They’re over there.”
Where Yubel pointed, there was a group of three goblins.
The goblins were holding stone spears that looked handmade.
Judging by the three goblins’ equipment, there was a goblin lair nearby.
“Hmm, why don’t you try a preemptive attack with magic? I’ll take care of them after.”
“Mm-hmm. Just a moment……”
Yubel looked a little tense.
Did she not have much experience hunting monsters?
Se-on took his longsword from its scabbard, ready to rush at the goblins at any moment.
He was getting a little used to it now, but the feeling of cutting into a living creature still didn’t feel good.
Still, he had no choice.
To defeat the Demon King, he had to make the most of the Hero’s abilities.
Yubel closed her eyes and tried to gather mana at her fingertips.
Before long, the magic power inside Yubel and the mana in the air swirled and were drawn into her hand.
Se-on watched from behind Yubel.
Yubel knelt on one knee, preparing to fire her magic.
Just then, Se-on realized.
From this angle, he could see Yubel’s nipples.
Damn it!
Now that he’d noticed, he couldn’t focus on battle.
Yubel wore a backless dress that covered only the undersides of her breasts.
She was dressed so provocatively.
Just a little, just a little more and... Yubel’s——
Aaaah! What am I doing?!
Thanks to that, Se-on couldn’t focus on the battle.
Just then, the mana that had been calm in Yubel’s hand suddenly began to run wild!
“Huh? What’s wrong with this!!”
“Kieek?”
The goblin reacted to Yubel’s flustered voice.
“I don’t know, just shoot!”
Yubel threw the out-of-control mana.
“Kieeek!!!”
One threw itself aside to dodge.
One ducked to dodge.
The last one got hit, thinking, ‘Huh, what’s that?’
Kaboom!!!!!!
A deafening boom shook the entire forest.
The mana Rasengan had only hit one goblin, but in the aftermath, the other goblins were scattered in all directions as bloody chunks.
Thud. Squish.
“……”
“……”
Se-on was dumbfounded.
He hadn’t expected this much.
Yubel felt the same.
Is this me?
Se-on couldn’t hide his amazement.
“Amazing!! Yubel!! I’ve never seen such powerful magic!”
He praised her, then turned from where the goblins had been toward Yubel.
But Yubel, who’d been quiet, was—
“Bleeaaaagh……”
Feeling sick, she was throwing up everything in her stomach.